‘Ghost Town’ a lively comedy

I would have bet that Hollywood would botch the job of finding the right project for offbeat Brit comic Ricky Gervais, but "Ghost Town" proved me wrong.

It's a consistently funny comedy that exactly captures Gervais' gift for playing self-centered jerks with a barely visible softer side (if you get a chance to see him in the BBC import "Extras," take it).

Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a misanthropic Manhattan dentist. He gives most people - patients and colleagues included - a look that says "drop dead," which he comes to regret, because it turns out that dead people are even more irksome than the living.

Pincus becomes a reluctant spirit medium after a near-death experience - a colonoscopy gone wrong, if that isn't redundant. It leaves Dr. Pincus with the ability to see, and hear, dead people. They follow him everywhere, pleading with the stand-offish dentist to right the wrongs they were unable to address in life, thereby freeing them to walk toward the light, or whatever.

The most persistent and glib is an adulterous man (Greg Kinnear) who believes his mission is to prevent his widow (Tea Leoni) from marrying a too-good-to-be true suitor (Bruce Campbell).

He recruits Pincus to break them up, and of course the cranky bachelor dentist falls in love with her, setting in motion the creaky romantic comedy plot that animates the movies' final third.

The romcom mechanics are the least enjoyable aspect of "Ghost Town," a movie with a Big Premise that finds most of its laughs in little places, or in the details that make a scene funny - writing, casting, timing.

For example: In one of the opening scenes, the big colonoscopy, Gervais has long, idiosyncratic back and forth with his wifty physician, played by "Saturday Night Live's" Kristen Wiig. The two actors have great verbal chemistry, and get big laughs based on an idea as old as two people talking over one another. Wiig returns for a couple of encores, each as good as the first.

The movie abounds with funny actors in small but vivid roles - the "Daily Show's" Aasif Mandvi, for instance, has some tasty scenes as another dentist in Pincus' practice.

And the top-line performers aren't bad, either. "Ghost Town" is an improbably apt showcase for Gervais' brand of humor, and the movie reminds us anew that Leoni is a gifted comedian (and underused, though I gather being married to David Duchovny is probably a full-time job).

As a screen couple, well, Gervais makes a weird match for the Amazonian Leoni. The movie senses this, and keeps their relationship platonic. Is something missing? You get the feeling that test audiences might have seen something they didn't like, and we were spared. *

Produced by Gaven Polone, directed by David Koepp, written by David Koepp, John Kamps, music by Geoff Zanelli, distributed by Paramount Pictures.